A summary table is a data summarization tool that allows detailed, transactional source data to be “rolled-up” or summarized at varying levels of detail. Summary table functionality, also known as pivot tables, can be found in data visualization and analysis programs such as spreadsheets programs and data reporting tools. The data analysis program may allow a user to draw the summary table as a grid, specifying data fields from the source data for the row and column labels of the grid as well as the data values summarized in the grid. The data analysis program may then group, sort, count, and/or total the data values in the grid based on the row and column labels extracted from the source data.
The data analysis program may allow the user to specify multiple data fields for the row and/or column labels of the summary table. In this case, the data analysis program traditionally displays the data values summarized hierarchically by the row or column labels based on the order of the data fields specified. The data analysis program may also allow the user to interactively manipulate the summary table, expanding and collapsing row labels or column labels in the hierarchy to display more or fewer data values, depending on the user's requirements.
Traditional implementations of summary tables are limited to a single set of row labels, or “row header area,” and single set of column labels, or “column header area,” As a consequence, a user wishing to have data summarized for two distinct views of data, for example, two different row headers areas based on different or the same data fields from the source data summarized across a common set of column labels, may have to build two separate summary tables. This creates a cumbersome process requiring redundant parameters to be specified as well as redundant displays of the common column labels. This also limits the ability of the distinct views of data to be manipulated together, for example, by grouping, expanding, or collapsing column labels or applying table level filters or other table level operations.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the disclosure made herein is presented.